The Weak-Eyed Bat

“Nice work, girls,” he said. “Perfect timing.” He turned to Susan. “I suppose it will do no good to apologize?”

“No good at all,” Susan said tightly.

“Well, in that case I’ll be going. Come along, Miss Shane, and I’ll throw you in the lake just for the practice.”

Susan strode back into the house, slamming the door behind her, and Prye and Nora walked down the steps.

“Sorry,” Nora said affably, “but how was I to know you were eavesdropping?”

Prye smiled bitterly. “I suppose you think I sit down on strange verandas to bite my fingernails.”

“Hear anything interesting?”

“No.”

“Liar. You’re bursting with information.”

“Three bits of information,” Prye said. “One, Constable Jakes is over his head. Two, so am I. Three, Susan Frost is a humbug.”

“I knew all that,” Nora said smugly.

Prye ignored this. “Now I don’t care whether Susan is a humbug or not because aren’t we all? But when she tells me that she went to sleep on the beach last night in a short-sleeved dress I demur.”

“All right. Why do you demur?”

Prye beamed. “Because she has no mosquito bites and the only mosquito oil in the house was in Joan’s room, which is always kept locked. Not a profound piece of detection, but cute, don’t you think?”

“Aren’t there people who are immune to mosquitoes?”

“No. There are mosquitoes which are choosy about their meals, but not in Muskoka. There are probably about sixty varieties of mosquitoes in Canada, and speaking from personal experience I think they’re all represented in this area.”

“Still, you haven’t proved anything,” Nora objected. “A lot of people lie. Even if she wasn’t sleeping on the beach, she may not have been slugging her sister.”

“Where was she if she wasn’t on the beach?” Prye asked rhetorically. “Well, there are only a limited number of places she could have been. Hattie says she was not at home. None of the residents saw her so she wasn’t visiting. That leaves her skulking around in the woods. Now why was she skulking around in the woods?”

“Best place if you’ve got to skulk.”

“I think she was trailing someone.”

“Who?”

Prye looked down at her with dignity. “I don’t know. I’m simply deducing and I haven’t reached that point yet, but she was probably trailing Joan. Suppose she suspected that Joan was planning an elopement. Naturally she would be interested in knowing who was going with her. So she put on a grey dress to disguise herself as a birch tree and went out to mingle with other birch trees.”

“Who was that birch tree I saw you with last night?” Nora said. “That was no birch tree, that was brown-eyed Susan Frost.”

“The question which now arises is chronological,” Prye said sternly. “Which incident happened first, the spotlight, me, or Joan? I think it’s probable that Joan was lolled first and that I was hit because I interrupted the removal of her body, and that the spotlight was broken to give the alarm, that is, to call attention to me. All of which leads me to believe that the murderer is a man or woman with scruples. Or else I am going to be used. Suppose that my presence is necessary to the murderer in some way...”

“Theory. For all you know, the spotlight might not have been broken by the murderer at all. Probably some nasty little elf did it to throw you off the track. You start off with Susan’s mosquito bites and end up with a murderer who gives you a crack on the skull and then gets soft-hearted and gives the alarm. You’re not logical.”

Prye was staggered. “Me! Not logical! To think I was on the point of becoming serious about you, given a little luring!”

“You can lure yourself around the block,” Nora said. “I’m going over to see Tom.”

“Why?”

“Because I think he killed Joan. On the same night, his current amour is murdered and his wife has a heart attack. Mary is rather plain, she controls the money, and she is in poor health. If I were Tom—”

“You’d have a perfect alibi ready.”

Nora nodded. “I would. Want to come along?”

Tom Little had his perfect alibi. It was all the more convincing as it came not from Tom, but from Jennie Harris.

Mrs. Little had retired immediately after dinner as usual, and at seven-fifteen Jennie had finished the dishes and sat down in the dining room to work on her afghan. Tom was in the sitting room all evening, sleeping. She could see his legs, and he snored at intervals.

“You wouldn’t be tempted to lie for Mr. Little, would you, Jennie?” Prye asked.

“Lie? For him? I should say not!”

“Are you an expert at crocheting afghans?”

“I’m pretty good,” Jennie admitted.

“Then your attention wouldn’t be fully taken up by your work? Could you, for instance, have become completely engrossed in it for half an hour?”

“No sir. I don’t even have to look when I crochet. That’s how I’m so sure about Mr. Little being there all the time. I could see him and hear him. What more do you want?”

“And you were in the dining room for at least two hours?”

Jennie nodded.